Ayrshire > Volume 2

THE DALRYMPLES OF STAIR 269
ment had grown weary of the war, which was highly
expensive as well as glorious, and Stair was sent home
to persuade the Ministry to provide more adequate
supplies for the carrying on of the campaign. From
Ministers he obtained little or no satisfaction, a fact
easily accounted for by the carrying on of negotiations,
of which Stair was in ignorance, for arranging the
preliminaries of peaee. Before the end of 171 1 Marl-
borough was dismissed from his offices on a charge of
having embezzled public monies, and the Duke of
Ormond was placed at the head of the army. Stair was
similarly deprived of his command, the Colonelcy of the
Scots Greys being made over at a fixed price to the Earl
of Portmore ; and Stair, taking advantage of his enforced
holiday, returned to Scotland and revisited his friends
and estates. His career so far had been uniformly
brilliant. Like many other soldiers of the period, he had
developed a weakness for gambling, and he lost heavily,
but his friends had come loyally to his support, and had
enabled him to recover his threatened financial position.
It was probably in 1714 that the Earl was married
in Edinburgh to Lady Eleanor Campbell, daughter of
the Earl of Loudoun, and widow of the first Viscount
Primrose, who had died in 1706. This lady, though
occasionally troubled with hysterical ailments, proved
an admirable wife and exercised a highly beneficial
influence over her husband, particularly in the way of
restraining him from over-indulgence in wine, to which,
after the fashion of the period, he was somewhat prone.
In this connection an interesting story is told by William
Chambers in his " Stories of Old Families " : — " In one
of his drunken fits he (Stair) so far exceeded the bounds
of reason and gentlemanly conduct as to give her (the
Countess) so severe a blow upon the upper part of her
face as to occasion the effusion of blood. He immediately
afterwards fell asleep, unconscious of what he had done.
Overwhelmed by a tumult of bitter feeling, Lady Stair
made no attempt to bind up her wound, but remained
near her torpid busband and wept and bled till morning.